What's New at Billabong Sanctuary
Exciting Changes for the School Holidays and Beyond
New animals, new displays, fresh landscaping, and a special holiday competition: It's all happening here at Billabong Sanctuary!
Bring the whole family and get in touch with your Wild Side! A day at Billabong Sanctuary is the perfect way to introduce out-of-town visitors to our amazing native animals. Come and feed the free-ranging kangaroos and those noisy whistling ducks, and get up close and personal with all your favourites: koalas, wombats, pythons, dingoes and those awesome crocs!
Bindi's beautiful bub needs a name
This joey has grown up and is ready to leave Mum, so it's time to give her a name. We're asking all you kids to help us over the school holidays. Come visit this lovely little koala, pick up an entry form in the Shop, and start thinking up a really good, true-blue Aussie name for her.
At the end of the holidays, we'll pick the best name, and award a swag of great prizes to the winner: a year's membership in Club Billabong for your family (an extension if you're already a member), a souvenir photo of you with the newly-christened joey, and a special treat from our gift shop.
And of course you will have the thrill of knowing that your name was the special one chosen for this special little joey. How good is that!
Feathered Friends
This thrilling show continues to evolve as we add new birds the line-up.
You will rarely see the same show twice, as we give our newcomers a chance to come out and meet the public.
On any one day you will see some of these amazing birds:
Squimm, a young tawny frogmouth: Shown here making his very first public appearance, he was a real trooper, sitting quietly for photos. Frogmouths are masters at camouflage, sitting motionlessly during theday, looking just like a dead branch. You may hear their repeated low-pitched hooting calls during the breeding season.
Roxy and Yoda, the barking owls: Known also as screaming woman owl, this bird, found locally, gives a whooping bark-like call as well as a piercing scream.
Owls have specially-adapted soft edges on their wing feathers which allow them to swoop silently on their prey.
Curlews: More correctly known as bush stone-curlews, these two were born right here at Billabong Sanctuary.
They are common locally but rarely seen because they feed at night. However the haunting, wailing cry is often heard during the breeding season.
Curlews seldom fly when disturbed; they defend their nest with threatening displays of outstretched wings and tail.
Barn Owls: William and Vincenzo have been hand-raised here and are almost old enough to fly. Barn Owls are the most widely distributed of all owls, found on every continent except Antarctica.
Black Kite: Yasi is still the star, flying down to snatch bits of meat tossed into the air.
Black kites are one of the most common birds of prey in this area, seen hovering over areas disturbed by bush fires, or feeding on road-kill.
Feathered Friends is on every morning at 11:15.
In other news…..
♣ Our little American alligators, Yankee and Doodle, are out on public display now in their new enclosure, just across the walkway from Caesar and Madonna.
We're often asked: "What's the difference between a crocodile and an alligator?"
Now you can check out some of the obvious differences for yourself: See how much broader the U-shaped snout is on the alligators. They use it for crushing prey such as turtles.
If you look at Caesar's mouth while he's resting, you can see both his top and bottom teeth all along the jawline. Alligators have a wider upper jaw, so when they are mature, you'll only see the top row of teeth exposed.
Estuarine crocodiles grow much larger than the biggest alligator.
Our expert Rangers will be happy to point out more similarities and differences between these two awesome reptiles.
♣ Both echidnas have happily settled in to their new enclosure opposite the cassowaries. We are grateful for the generous support from Xstrata, who sponsored this enclosure under their Community Partnership Programme.
♣ Grampa, one of the biggest lace monitors you'll ever see, has joined our other goannas in their new enclosure, also opposite the cassowaries.
New faces in the mob
Tara was born in Mt Isa, but grew up in New Zealand.
With a love of animals and a strong background in retail management she is going to be a great addition to our team of friendly Shop staff.
So far she has no favourites among our native animals, but was really excited on her first tour of the park to be able to cuddle our new emu.
Ryan is a native of New Zealand with years of international experience training birds of prey and presenting wildlife shows.
As well as his regular duties as a Ranger, he'll be working behind the scenes with all those young birds training them to join the free-flight show.
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Very good, well laid out and informative – Al Matland-Stellart, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) |
